Fairhaven fights to fill former Shaw's home at Berdon Plaza

When Shaw's announced the closure of five stores last July, the branch at Berdon Plaza was among the unlucky few. And nearly a year later, the prospect of a new tenant seems as dim.

SIMÓN RIOS

FAIRHAVEN – When Shaw's announced the closure of five stores last July, the branch at Berdon Plaza was among the unlucky few. Despite talk about bringing a Wegman's or a Trader Joe's to the vacant spot, nearly a year later, the prospect of a new tenant seems as dim as the day Shaw's closed.

“We are still trying to pursue … Trader Joe's to say, 'Please come down. Let's take a look,” said Bill Roth, Fairhaven's director of planning and economic development.

“What can I do to help streamline to get these tenants in?”

Though it's not the responsibility of planning staff to lease real estate, Roth said he can help ease the process by navigating town government.

Built in 1998, the 75,000-square-foot Shaw's was the anchor business at Berdon Plaza. The plaza is now home to five vacant spaces, including the former Peking Palace, Dots Fashion, West Marine and Cohen's Optical.

Still in business are Olympia Sports, Town Fair Tire, Radio Shack, Auto Zone, California Nails, H&R Block, Bank of America and Supercuts. For some of these businesses, the absence of the Shaw's anchor has meant less business.

Jessica Kinney is the district manager at several Supercuts on SouthCoast. She said sales are down by as much as 25 percent.

“Not with Peking so much, but when West Marine closed I noticed it a little bit, and then of course Shaw's, and then Dots closed,” Kinney said, running a buzzer around a boy's head.

Although she hasn't had to let anybody go – and she said things aren't bad enough that they would close the shop – the stylists are getting fewer hours.

Adam Carreiro, store manager at the Fairhaven Olympia Sports, said foot traffic has declined as well as sales, down by roughly 15 percent.

“We're well known in the town so we still get our regular customers, but it's mainly the foot traffic that's missing from Shaw's being closed,” he said.

Ross Carvalho, a parts manager at Auto Zone in Berdon Plaza, said sales are looking good despite a decline in foot traffic.

“There's definitely less vehicles in the parking lot,” Carvalho said, “(but) year to date our sales are higher.”

Berdon Plaza's vast parking lot sits largely unused, with placards on the windows advertising the vacant space. Fairhaven's planner Bill Roth said someone was set to move into the former Peking Garden, but that fizzled because the liquor license had expired.

Shaw's closed two New Bedford stores in the 2000s, one on Kings Highway that remains vacant and a second on Cove Road that is now partially occupied by a Save-a-Lot.

When the Fairhaven Shaw's shuttered its doors, branches in Fall River, Stoughton, Taunton, as well as Westerly and Woonsocket, Rhode Island also closed. Officials in each community said the buildings are still vacant, although the building inspector in Stoughton said it's likely that another grocer is on the horizon.

Marilyn Shellman, town planner in Westerly, said she's hoping to get Christmas Tree Shop or Cardi's Furniture to fill the void.

“I think right now it's a bit of a grim outlook,” she said. “We've heard rumblings about maybe Whole Foods, maybe Trader Joe's, maybe Dave's Market, but who knows?”

Shellman said the building could be put to a different type of use, such as a co-op with several businesses operating under one roof. But she wasn't optimistic about the future of strip malls.

“I'm beginning to wonder if the internet will take over and some of these storefronts will just disappear,” she said.

According to the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit “multidisciplinary real estate forum,” the United States has about a billion square feet of vacant retail space, much of it in the form of suburban strip malls. In a 2011 article, ULI's Edward T. McMahon wrote that in the 40 years leading up to 2000 there was a nearly tenfold increase in retail space, from four to 38-square-feet per person.

Much of the space needs to be either repurposed or demolished, he added, potentially taking out as much 300 million-square-feet of the billion in vacant space.

“It's a large square footage,” said Roth of the vacant Shaw's building. “Unfortunately, it's the size for a big box.”

Roth said the big box industry is shrinking — and when a big box goes others can follow suit.

“I worry about the domino effect because without that major tenant anchor there … it's going to be very hard to fill those side tenants.”

Colleen Dawicki of the Urban Initiative at UMass Dartmouth said stripmalls represent a way of “bringing downtown to the suburbs.” But now the trend is reversing, with more interest in urban living and less interest in activities that require cars.

“The tough thing with those sites is that the redevelopment cost is so high that without a really strong market it's hard to see someone redeveloping a parcel like that,” she said.

One use she imagined was to turn former supermarkets into food pantry distribution centers. Although that might not make geographical sense in a place like Fairhaven, it could work at the vacant Shaw's in New Bedford.

The owner of the properties in Berdon Plaza is Devcon Fairhaven LLC, while the leasing agent for the Shaw's building is American Retail Properties. None of the three companies would comment on Berdon Plaza.

The assessed value of Devcon's properties at Berdon Plaza is $11,378,300. According to the collector's office, Devcon paid $270,000 in real estate taxes in fiscal 2014, while Shaw's paid $3,371 in personal property taxes.

Del Garcia, assistant assessor for the town, said it's possible that the assessed value of the property will decline for 2015, given that the Shaw's is no longer in business. That could mean less tax revenue for the town.

Fairhaven Selectman Charlie Murphy said having a vacant building in the middle of town “doesn't help our community at all.”

“An ideal world?” Murphy added. “It would be really nice to see a supermarket there.”